From GhostBusters:Dr Ray Stantz: "Symmetrical book stacking. Just like the Philadelphia mass turbulence of 1947."Dr. Peter Venkman: "You're right, no human being would stack books like this."

This reminds me of a recent SS encounter. A local theater shows classic movies and a few weeks ago they showed Ghostbusters - a favorite I never got to see on the big screen because I was only 3 when it came out. I guess times have changed though because one couple brought their 2 toddlers (maybe 3/4 years old?). For the ENTIRE movie, every 2 minutes I got to hear their little voices asking, "Mommy!! Why are they laughing??" "Mommy!!! What is funny??"

In the Air Force, we have Physical Fitness tests. I had one today. There I encountered SS inthewayandIdon'tcareus.

We do our 1 1/2 mile run on a 1/4 mile track. It has 6 running lanes, and runners are supposed to stay on the inside. Usually, the track closes for testers, but Miss SS intheway was walking in the outer lane and promised not to get in the way.

Test starts. We all start running. About 2 minutes into the test, Miss SS decides that she wants to jog, so she makes her way into the inner lane. She then gets huffy any time anyone passes her (right or left side). She also couldn't commit to a lane, so you were stuck bobbing and weaving trying to get around, or making a wide sweep around her.

We can't stop to remove her, because that will kill our run time. The testing officials were busy watching for cheating/people passing out/calling out run times. Eventually Miss SS was told sternly to move to the outer track again, but she pitched a fit because "we interrupted her intervals". I'd be more upset over the whole thing, but Miss SS didn't know that our Group Commander (2nd or 3rd highest rank guy on base) was testing that day. I left with my passing score with a huge grin on my face, because Colonel GC was ripping into her. She is not going to have a nice day.

Fore the record, we have 2 outdoor tracks, and indoor track, and running trails. She could have just left and not been a pain in the butt. The green track is better anyway.

Logged

My inner (r-word) is having a field day with this one.-Love is Evol: Christopher Titus-

I don't get this. As in "You will participate or we'll throw your kid/have you arrested?" Because that's the only "HAVE to" I can think of.

Rob

No, there is usually a special all-day event at the school for the kids that sold items for the fundraiser and the ones who didn't are kept in a class. That hasn't happened here since Elementary, but it does happen.

I nominate the students at my school that nearly run into poles, moving cars, other people, moving bicycles and skateboards with people on them, parked cars, and random fixed objects because they are so oblivious to the world while reading their phones, devices and books while often walking in the road.

Of course, 99% of them have headphones on or earbuds in and can't hear the horns or people objecting to them drifting into their path.

I nominate the students at my school that nearly run into poles, moving cars, other people, moving bicycles and skateboards with people on them, parked cars, and random fixed objects because they are so oblivious to the world while reading their phones, devices and books while often walking in the road.

Of course, 99% of them have headphones on or earbuds in and can't hear the horns or people objecting to them drifting into their path.

That's ... honestly, how can someone have that little sense of self-preservation?

Logged

My cousin's memoir of love and loneliness while raising a child with multiple disabilities will be out on Amazon soon! Know the Night, by Maria Mutch, has been called "full of hope, light, and companionship for surviving the small hours of the night."

I nominate the students at my school that nearly run into poles, moving cars, other people, moving bicycles and skateboards with people on them, parked cars, and random fixed objects because they are so oblivious to the world while reading their phones, devices and books while often walking in the road.

Of course, 99% of them have headphones on or earbuds in and can't hear the horns or people objecting to them drifting into their path.

I'm not sure if this person qualified as a Special Snowflake, or was more of a clueless airhead, or some other term that probably wouldn't get past the filters and would possibly get me banned if I used it.

Today is the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech and it reminded me of this incident that happened many, many years ago.

I was watching Maury and he had on talented kids and had some talent scouts in the audience looking for new talent. One mother became upset that her little precious wasn't picked. She stood up in the audience and started berating Maury and the judges for not selecting her child, telling them that they were destroying her child's "dream" of becoming a star. She said something to the effect that "just like Dr. King had a dream, my son also has a dream." Everyone in the audience started booing her and trying to shout her down, but she just kept on yammering about her son's "dream" and trying to compare it to Dr. King's "I have a dream" speech.

I don't remember if she finally sat down and shut up, or walked out, or what, I was in shock that she actually said what she did.

Mom was also named after someone and went by a common nickname for that name. When she first went to school, she didn't really realize that her name was Proper name instead of nickname. So when the teacher called roll, Mom kept looking around for Aunt Proper Name because her Name was nickname.

We had that issue when I first started preschool. Let's say my name is 'Jessica'. Well, for the prior three-four years I had been referred to by my parents solely as, say, 'Ferret' and my other relatives used similar nicknames for me that were loosely related to my name at best.

So I go into preschool, where they keep talking to or mentioning a 'Jessica' and I'm just ignoring them.

They finally stopped my mom at the door when she came to pick me up, all worried. They'd been the only ones talking to me, I hadn't been acknowledging them, they were worried I might be deaf. Explained the whole situation, my mom turned toward me, called "Yo, Ferret, we're leaving!" at which point I light up, jumped up and ran to meet her.

After three to four years of being called 'Ferret' I'd figured that was my name. And was it any surprise when the closest anyone came to calling me 'Jessica' was a few aunts that referred to me as 'Jezebel'.

Logged

"Heh. Forgive our manners, little creature — that we may well kill and eat you is no excuse for rudeness."

I got a Groupon from a local cleaning service for two two-hour housecleaning sessions. I am actually in the market for a cleaning service (I go back and forth about whether it's worth the money, but I hate having a dirty house and I never manage to stay on top of it!) and most places have a "first-time fee" which is 2-3x what the normal rate is - so if they'd normally charge you $100 each time they come out, the first time may be $350. I suspect it's a surcharge because they assume your house really needs the extra help the first time . . . Anyway, I was hoping if I liked this service, they could skip the first-time fee (since they would have just been here twice for the Groupon) and overall it would save me some money.

The first session went . . . meh. They worked very fast, which was nice. But I had given them my top priorities to start with because I wasn't sure how long it would take to clean them and I wanted to make sure things like the bathrooms got done. And when they finished with the list of things I gave them, they left - after 90 minutes (so half an hour short of the cleaning session I paid for). I was dealing with Bittybartfast at the time so I hadn't realized they were done until they were gone. There were also things I couldn't tell if they had cleaned - the tub had a bit of dust in it which could have been just stuck to the sponge or could have been "they only did a halfway job," for example, and it looked like they had just wiped around the stuff on the bathroom counter instead of actually picking things up and cleaning underneath them.

This time I had a longer and more specific list of what I wanted done, since I had a better idea of how much they could get done in two hours. And once again, they finished up in an hour and a half. Except as they're in the driveway I looked at the stairs and what do you know - the same bits of lint I've been stepping over all month. So I chased out after them and asked if they had done the stairs, and they said they did but they'd come in and do them again, and I think they did them right this time.

And since there was still ~25 minutes to go that I had paid for, I asked them to bring some of their stuff back in and do things like dust the living room ("do the living room" seems to have translated into "vacuum only") and re-do the microwave to get the stuff off that their first pass didn't get un-stuck. The cleaning ladies weren't really mad, or rude, or anything, but they both had this confused look like "why would you be asking us to do this when we're already done?"

I get that they were probably looking forward to lunch and I delayed that. And I get that the stuff I wanted them to do at the end wasn't strictly on my original list. But I had expected "two hours of cleaning" to involve them cleaning what I asked and then if there was time left, coming back to me and saying "anything else you want us to do?" before calling it a day. Am I unreasonable to want that? I've never worked as a cleaner (other than my own house!), so I'm not up on all the housekeeping etiquette or whatnot, but it seems like "two hours" should be "two hours or until the homeowner says you're done, whichever comes first."

So obviously I'm not going to use this company on a regular basis. But if/when they call me, do I tell them why I'm not continuing? Or do I just say I'm not looking for someone right now? I don't know whether one of the two ladies who came today was the owner, or just an employee, or what.